Summer 2004 Contest
Summer 2004 Contest was the third Summer Contest on GameFAQs. It is generally considered one of the most disappointing Contests, as it was filled with Same Fanbase Factor problems and did not produce many very exciting matches. Ulti's Analysis With the Spring Contest still fresh in everyone's mind, we barely had any break from the contest setting whatsoever. CJayC waited until August 1st to start the Summer 2004 Contest, but nominations for the contest were open a full month and a half ahead of time. We had all of two weeks of offseason, but it was little more than a breath of air than it was an offseason. This year's Summer Contest was set up different than in the past in that instead of the four cardinal directions being the names of the divisions, CJayC decided to name the divisions after their 1 seeds. It was a good idea on paper, but it wound up not giving us a very good bracket. With named divisions come characters within the divisions based off of that name, and in the end you're left with a disguised company-based bracket. It made for a very boring contest featuring a ton of Same Fanbase Factor matchups that look good on paper, but in reality lead to nothing more than predictability as we got thing rolling along. The aftermath of this match was rather small, and had more to do about the future of the contest than the contest that had just taken place. This contest, to put it bluntly, sucked. It was too predictable, and the only reason we didn't have any zero/perfect brackets were because of stupid mistakes. There was a very small number of surprises, and even the matches that surprised us went the way they were supposed to. We had five people finish one point off of a perfect bracket, and the lowest score on the leaderboard was 188. The winner of the Spring Contest scored 185 points, but in SC2K4, that score isn't good enough to even sniff the leaderboard. Two polls were held after the Summer 2004 Contest were over, and both of them cater to something new being needed next year. Personally, we don't need any drastic changes. Just retire Cloud and Link and put some time into making a decent bracket. The contests are fine, just not this one. I touched base upon this during my finals analysis, but I'll say it again. This contest sucked. It was too predictable, and even the matches that could have been deemed a surprise were not a surprise. Sure, none of us expected Tails to take down Viewtiful Joe, but were we really surprised to see it happen? Aside from Frog and Ryu Hayabusa's matches, there was nothing worth watching in this contest, and there was nothing whatsoever of excitement after the first two rounds. We need a better bracket, and if we are to leave Cloud and Link in, we need to handicap them. The way things went in this contest are simply unacceptable, and something needs to be done. And no, we don't need tag teams or threesomes. We simply need a well-done bracket and something to be done about Cloud and Link. This contest was once the greatest thing about this site, but it's turned into something that half the site no longer cares about. Hyrule Division Link Mega Man Link Cloud Link (1) Link (16) CATS Link Ganondorf Link Yoshi Link Crono (8) Ganondorf (9) Alucard (5) Yoshi (12) Ryo Hazuki Yoshi Luigi (4) Luigi (13) Pac-Man (6) Magus (11) Luca Blight Magus Crono Crono Mario (3) Crono (14) Conker (7) Bowser (10) Guybrush Threepwood Bowser Mario (2) Mario (15) JC Denton (Deus Ex) 20XX Division (1) Mega Man (16) Earthworm Jim Mega Man Tidus Mega Man Zero Mega Man Snake (8) Tidus (9) Shadow the Hedgehog (5) Tommy Vercetti (12) Max Payne Tommy V. Zero (4) Zero (13) Protoman (6) Frog (Chrono Trigger) (11) Liquid Snake Frog M. Chief Frog Snake (3) Master Chief (14) Crash Bandicoot (7) Kefka (10) Knuckles the Echidna Knuckles Snake (2) Solid Snake (15) Tanner (Driver) Midgar Division Cloud Samus (1) Cloud Strife (16) Duke Nukem Cloud Vyse Cloud Squall Cloud Sephiroth (8) Vyse (9) Laharl (Disgaea) (5) Kirby (12) Kain (Legacy of Kain) Kirby Squall (4) Squall Leonhart (13) Bomberman (6) Ness (Earthbound) (11) Jak Ness Auron Auron Sephiroth (3) Auron (14) Scorpion (7) Vivi (10) Donkey Kong Vivi Sephiroth (2) Sephiroth (15) Sly Cooper Chaos Division (1) Sonic the Hedgehog (16) Terry Bogard Sonic Ryu (SF) Sonic Dante Sonic Samus (8) KOS-MOS (9) Ryu (Street Fighter) (5) Viewtiful Joe (12) Miles "Tails" Prower Tails Dante (4) Dante (13) Ratchet (6) Sora (11) HK-47 (Star Wars KOTOR) Sora Ryu H. Sora Samus (3) Ryu Hayabusa (14) Jill Valentine (7) Sam Fisher (10) Gordon Freeman Sam F. Samus (2) Samus Aran (15) Lara Croft Results and Analysis Interesting Facts * 2004's Ultimate Loser was Viewtiful Joe. Joe lost to Tails, who lost to Dante, who lost to Sonic, who lost to Samus, who lost to Cloud, who lost to Link * Only 9 of the 64 characters in this contest haven't appeared in a battle since 2004 Ngamer's Analysis Ugh, just ugh. CJay takes a ton of crap for putting together this bracket (which makes sense, since it was awful), but really, this was the Contest we asked for. There had been some ugly SFF in the Spring, but we thought that was pretty much a games-only thing; in fact, plenty of this board was pulling hard for Ganon back in '03 because we thought a Link/Ganon fight would be really cool to watch, and so when it was set up here for the next year we were happy. '04 gets partially bailed out because Cloud's upset the year before helped keep the Final interesting, and at least we were seeing the 2 strongest characters go at it in the Championship for the first time ever, but eh... in all honestly only Frog's amazing run keeps this Contest out of the bottom of the barrel. Category:GameFAQs Contests